Justice Watch: The Alliance for Justice Blog

April 2016

There’s always been an air of desperation around right-wing attempts to smear Judge Merrick Garland’s judicial record. Unable to find actual evidence that Judge Garland is anything but a fair-minded jurist who upholds the rule of law, his critics have resorted to either gross mischaracterizations of his decisions, or attacks manufactured out of thin air—making assumptions about his views based on the bare fact that President Obama nominated him rather than actual cases (and he has 19 years’ worth to choose from).

But things went from desperate to absurd when the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), a front group for the Kochs and other corporate interests, went after Judge Garland over a case in which Judge Garland and Justice Scalia (along with every member of the Supreme Court at the time, including Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thomas) came out precisely the same way.

In a series of speeches on the House floor last Thursday, a group of House Members led by Rep. Hank Johnson made a powerful and compelling case to end the insidious practice of pre-dispute forced arbitration. Attacking forced arbitration in all its forms, the Members explained how corporations use the practice to deceive individuals into giving up their legal rights and to escape accountability for breaking the law. They also highlighted the growing demand for change and various ongoing reform efforts, including new legislation and agency rulemaking. Read more

After more than a year of campaigning and action by undocumented immigrants and other affected people, President Obama announced a series of executive actions on immigration on November 20, 2014. The two main pieces of these actions included (1) provisions to expand the population eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to people of any current age who entered the country before the age of 16, and (2) a new Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program that would allow parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to request deferred action and employment authorization.

For the second time in a row, the immigrant community successfully advocated for executive action to protect immigrants. For many members of United We Dream, this victory was reminiscent of the first announcement of DACA in 2012 that finally gave undocumented youth some relief from deportation and for work authorization. To date, more than 700,000 undocumented young people have been able to benefit from DACA, and the changes to people’s lives have been enormous. Although many people still did not fall within these initial executive actions, we saw this moment as another stepping stone to justice that our communities had been denied. Read more

The Senate finally voted on Waverly Crenshaw, Jr.’s nomination to be a district court judge in the Middle District of Tennessee last night after a 432-day wait. Senate Republicans delayed Crenshaw’s confirmation despite his having the recommendation of Tennessee’s two Republican senators and the unanimous support of the Judiciary Committee. He’s just the 17th judge confirmed since Republicans took over the Senate in January 2015, putting the 114th Congress on pace for the lowest number of judicial confirmations in more than 60 years, and way behind the 68 judges that George W. Bush appointed in his last two years.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley celebrated this rare occasion of the Senate doing its job by dusting off one of Senate Republicans’ favorite misleading talking points—to wit, that there’s no legitimate gripe about confirmations because President Obama has had more total judges confirmed at this point than did Bush. Read more